The Littlest Reaper
by I am Best
Summary: There are two facts that reapers have known since the beginning of their existence: 1) Reapers are specially chosen, departed humans, and 2) reapers are all adults, as a result. Then there's Grell Sutcliff.
1. Chapter 1

Nesta Argall eased down to the ground, one hand on the tree for support as she settled in amid its roots. She had with her a small packed lunch and a book she'd been meaning to read for ages. This was the first time in a long while since Nesta had had a break from work. She'd damned well earned this reprieve. The sun was high, skies blue, and farther down the hillside the occasional cart creaked along deeply grooved, dirt roads. She might even take a nap, the day was so nice.

It was much calmer than the reaper realm, which was always busy and bustling, especially as of late, with so many new regulations and rules being passed. Nesta had jumped at the chance to get out of the stifling meetings and do some field work.

The glasses department had been advancing quickly with new technology, and somebody had to distribute the new specs, trade out those old ones - or sometimes, nothing at all - the rural reapers had. With everything becoming standardized, everyone needed brand new glasses. And everyone needed to be surveyed for the census. Nesta was glad to do both rather than read reports.

The glasses department didn't have a field office, but once upon a time she'd been in dispatch, and Nesta sometimes missed the excitement. So she'd taken the opportunity to visit the mainland and deliver glasses, but hadn't foreseen quite so much walking. It was like a tour, but with nothing to write home about.

Most villages had all of two reapers. Some, only one, because a single family and mountainous forests did not a proper village make. The isolation would have driven lesser beings mad, but the reapers Nesta met had just been antiquated, with nary a lunatic between them.

One kind soul glad to finally be able to see more than five feet in front of her had made Nesta a lunch and sent her where she thought more reapers might be. Like prey, these rural reapers hid away from everyone, including their own kind, and didn't bother to leave behind a means of contact.

Regulation suits and ties were not meant for trekking through German wilderness to hunt down reapers.

This left her feeling sweaty and out of sorts, but she refused to let that ruin her lunch. Nesta spread the meal out on top of her glasses case, still heavy with undistributed pairs - a reminder of work yet to be done - and settled back to read. The other reaper had provided her with more than she'd eat now, things that would save, and there was always dinner to take into consideration. Reapers had been working for centuries with poor glasses or none. A few more hours wouldn't hurt.

As Nesta read the travelers below multiplied - from one solitary driver every once in a while to clumps of people on the move. Every once in a while, she heard children freed from their duties, and one even ventured up the hillside. After barely a look out of the corner of her eye at the scrappy urchin, Nesta decided that he belonged to nobody on the road. No one had seen fit to bathe him in a long while, and apparently the child had decided to roll in mud or something less savory before ploughing through a thicket's worth of brambles. The reaper ignored him, then. Humans couldn't see death until it was their time, and they weren't particularly interesting alive when you'd seen their souls laid bare.

The boy hung around a while longer, played on the tree and accidentally shook leaves down onto Nesta as he scaled its rough trunk. She wanted to tell the human to shoo and let her read in peace, but that would cause more problems then it would solve, and a tree could be fun only for so long. Or at least Nesta hoped so.

Eventually the gravity caught up to the boy, and he toppled out of the tree with a muffled cry. After a long stretch of silence, Nesta glanced up. Instead of a child laying winded or dead on the ground, she saw a child grabbing her damn apple.

He looked at her. Not through her, like a human ought to have done. _At_ her. He could see the reaper.

Nesta stared back.

Above a scrunched nose spattered with freckles and mud sat two, squinting, phosphorescent green eyes like her own.

Nesta realized the human - no, the reaper? - had run before she'd even processed that thought. She bolted to her feet and chased after. "Hey, stop!" He ignored the order.

Before he could get too far Nesta pounced and tackled him to the ground. The child yelled and kicked as they both rolled down the hill, his ill-gotten apple flung ahead to be crushed by horse hooves. They both soon followed as he tried his best to wriggle out of Nesta's grip. The cart rolled over them and a few people on foot walked past and through, unaware of the reapers grappling right in their midst. Both his screams and her muffled cursing went unnoticed.

Then he bit her and Nesta let go with a yelp to clutch at the bloodied gap where part of her arm had been. Teeth, bone-white and etched in blood - her blood - were bared at her with a savageness Nesta had never seen before. They were like arrowheads jammed into his mouth, and sharp as knives as Nesta had had the misfortune of finding out. When the boy scrambled to his feet Nesta took the chance to grab him around the waist, mindful now of where exactly his mouth was. He spit her own blood back at her.

"You can't see me! You can't see me!" he screamed as Nesta hefted him into her arms and dragged him back up the hill. Though the boy was yelling in the local German, it was a broken, strange pronunciation.

"Calm down!" she yelled right back. "I won't hurt you," Nesta added a little more calmly, taking her own advice.

Huffing like he'd run a race, the boy finally gave in and went limp in Nesta's arms as she settled near the tree again. What he lacked in strength he made up in ferocity, but that burned hot and fast, and now there was nothing left to do but become dead weight. She grimaced at the pressure it put on her arm.

"Here, you can have some of this," she offered when he refused to do anything at all now, handing over some food without releasing her grip around the thin waist. He probably lived off of what he could steal, if his slight weight and knobby angles that he'd jabbed into her ribs and face were anything to go by. The child inhaled the bread and snatched up more, pausing occasionally to squint warily at the older reaper holding him captive.

"You can see me?" he asked finally.

Though Nesta felt it should be obvious that yes, she could, she nonetheless answered in the affirmative. "I can, and you can see me, which I can tell you is very unusual. What are you?"

The fanged mouth opened, then closed again, and the child looked as puzzled as Nesta felt. Reapers weren't children. They were humans who lived long enough to make bad choices and died and were chosen to be reborn. But they were never chosen as children, nor became children. This wasn't the sort of work a child should do.

Nesta wasn't sure what to do with him, now that she'd caught him.

A small hand came up and patted Nesta on the cheek, felt the start of crows feet at the edges of her eyes and the brown hair that had been knocked from her bun and hung now around her face. "You can see me?" he asked again.

With another nod, Nesta relaxed her grip. The boy made no attempt to run. He seemed too stunned by the idea that Nesta could see him.

Sighing, Nesta packed up her food, giving one last piece of cheese to the boy before wrapping everything up and opening her case to put it all away. This was not a situation for the glasses department. Unless it was? She paused while making room among the glasses for her book and food, then riffled through for a pair. Glasses and census, Nesta did have a job to do.

The child was standing awkwardly near the tree, face in its perpetual scrunch of uncertainty, when she found one that looked like it might fit. "Here." Nesta opened the glasses and moved cautiously to put them on the boy's head. The blood on her grey suit was an open reminder about what he could do. He flinched, but seemed unwilling to leave now that he'd been caught. Though they were a little big they managed to stay on his face. "How's that?"

It took a moment for him to register, then like every other reaper who'd never had glasses, he pulled them down, pushed them up, opened and closed each eye. He was too intent on studying this new world of distinct figures and shapes to reply.

"You can have those until we get you fitted correctly. Come on." Nesta offered her hand.

The little reaper stared at it, then fitted his hand into Nesta's. When she did nothing threatening in response, he wrapped his other one around for good measure. Bribing him with food and glasses had cut through the wariness he'd been showing earlier. "You can see me?" he asked again, holding tightly enough that Nesta could feel the crescents of small nails digging into her skin.

"I can," she assured him. At the first step one of the child's hands came free to hold his glasses in place. Nesta paused to let him adjust. "And now you can see me too, and where you're going. It takes some getting used to."

The boy nodded and clung close to Nesta once she'd picked up her case (wincing at the pull it put on her injured arm) and they walked down to the road to join the evening straggles on their way home and, hopefully, to more reapers in need of glasses. Nesta would come up with something to do with him on the way.

* * *

They paused at the first stream they came across and left the road to get patched up. Nesta had tried to make small talk, but the child didn't seem to know anything about anything. He had no family, no home. One day he wasn't, then he was, and he was alone. That was all he knew about himself, and he learned what little else he knew from eavesdropping on humans. When she'd ask too many questions he'd stop walking, stop talking, and make half-hearted attempts at escape or thievery. At first it was cute, but then it began to grate, especially when he refused to clean up even a little, and Nesta had to drag him into the stream and battle it out with him again.

She named him Grell, and didn't tell him what it meant, because she had to call him something.

With the grime off of him and now mostly on her, she saw that true to his personality Grell had a dandelion fluff of blood red hair. That coupled with his reaper eyes and shark's teeth that he bared at her when her probing annoyed him gave him the look of a demon. It was lucky for the poor little hellion that humans couldn't see him.

While Grell skulked and dried in the dying light of evening, Nesta felt out the damages done to her and patched herself up as well as she could. The gash on her arm reopened in the water and oozed sluggishly, and she had busted her lip and nose on Grell's angles earlier, leaving the skin tender and coated in dried, flaking blood. It was a good reminder of why she worked a desk job now. This had not been the excitement she wanted in her field work.

Grell seemed just as confused as Nesta about this whole thing, constantly fidgeting, unsure what to do with himself. Every gesture and grimace suggested he didn't want to be here, but she wasn't holding him anymore. Grell could leave whenever he wanted to, so long as he got enough of a head start to outrun her. He just... didn't.

"My boss, Mr Anderson, he'll know what to do with you," Nesta told Grell as she pressed a wet handkerchief to her face, trying to coax the swelling down. "He's nice. He made those glasses you're wearing." Grell reached up and touched them.

"Why'd you take me?" he asked. Nesta had figured out why his voice sounded so odd earlier, once she had time to study him. Not only were his teeth an obstacle course for his lips and tongue, but Grell had very little practice with speaking, what with nobody to talk to until now.

Nobody had been able to see him, either. Nesta couldn't imagine living your whole life invisible and not knowing why. Grell shifted nervously as he waited for an answer.

"We're counting how many reapers there are, and since you're a reaper, you have to be counted too."

"What's a reaper? Are you a reaper?"

Nesta nodded as she pinned her hair back up, trying to look a little more presentable. "When humans die, we record and collect their souls. Have you ever seen a person die?" Grell nodded. Nesta found a lack of sympathy for him having done so, as he was a reaper, but hoped it wasn't gruesome. "Did somebody come and collect a long glowing ribbon from the body?" Another nod. "That was a reaper. That's what we do."

"That's what I do?"

"I imagine you will in the future, but it won't be up to me to decide. I just distribute glasses." Nesta stood and patted herself clean. She summoned her scythe, just a simple trowel with a sharpened edge, and cut a reminder into the nearest tree. She'd have to pick up here later. Nesta held her hand out to Grell again. He took it without hesitation this time.

"Come on, I'll take you to my boss."


	2. Chapter 2

Grell's first taste of realm jumping consisted of him dying in Nesta's arms. She hadn't considered the fact that he would have never done it before, or that he had a sense of dramatics, or whatever it was that caused him to react like that. Grell collapsed in a heap at her feet as soon as they materialized in the lobby of the glasses department.

Nobody else was around to witness Nesta gasp and drop to her own knees beside him. It was the dead of night by the time she'd gotten both of them presentable enough to travel, and it wasn't like this particular department had to be open at all hours like dispatch. The workers all had their own lives to attend to. For the most part. There wasn't even a secretary on duty, but Nesta and everyone else knew Mr Anderson was always at his desk, burning the midnight oil. He'd built the department from the ground up and was fiercely dedicated to its continued existence. He was one of those old soul reapers, around since time immemorial, and apparently needed not a wink of sleep. Or he just slept in his office.

"Oh, no no no," Nesta whispered, pulling the limp child into her arms. "Please don't be dead. I can't bring a dead person to my boss." He wasn't breathing. She tapped his cheeks until he twitched, then roused, and let out a sigh when he finally opened his eyes.

Grell lifted his head and tossed it back and forth like an animal scenting the air. Once he felt steady enough, he pushed himself out of Nesta's arms and tottered away. She followed close behind, explaining where they were. While Nesta hadn't considered how travel might affect him, she was lucky they had traveled at night, with nobody else to see them. She didn't know if what she's done was entirely legal, or how Grell would react to so many people. She could not get in trouble for another maiming.

Nesta caught him on his shoulder as they walked to Mr Anderson's office. "Be polite."

Grell looked at her with befuddlement, like he didn't know what that word meant. It was better than outright refusal, at least. He still seemed dazed by the transition.

Nesta took a deep breath and knocked. "Mr Anderson, sir?"

The seconds it took him to answer dragged by. Grell swatted Nesta on her hand where she'd taken to digging her fingers into his arm.

"Come in."

Nesta ushered Grell in before her. The office was darkly colored as was fashionable at the time, and only one light shone, its focus on the table Mr Anderson worked at. He glanced up. "Good grief, what happened to you?"

"Sir, I found something in Germany. Uh, someone." Nesta pulled Grell up by his arm. He writhed in protest, bare toes barely brushing the carpet.

Mr Anderson was at a loss for words. "You... Kidnapped a child?"

Nesta shook her head fervently and picked Grell up correctly to deposit him on the desk. He immediately began shoving everything but himself off in an attempt to escape. Mr Anderson caught him easily. "Look at his eyes. And watch his teeth."

Mr Anderson set Grell on the edge of the desk to get a proper look at him. He seemed unperturbed by the glint of fangs. "Hello, little one. What's your name?"

When Grell didn't offer one, Nesta gave it for him. She filled Mr Anderson in on the events leading to this point, then stood back nervously, awaiting his response.

"You did well, Miss Argall," he said finally, then turned his attention to Grell. "This is very unusual. I've never seen something like you before." Mr Anderson accompanied the words with a gentle push of Grell's glasses to keep them on his face. Grell sat still, either calmer in Mr Anderson's presence or too afraid to move. This was now a second person who could see him.

"Should I leave him with you, sir?"

"For now, yes. You have your own job to get back to, I imagine?"

"Yes, sir. It'll be a while yet before I'm done."

"Continue as normal, Miss Argall, and let's keep this between us."

While they talked and otherwise ignored him, Grell examined the lamp, tapping the glass of the bulb before pulling his hand away sharply and blowing on his fingertips. The two reapers lapsed into silence to watch him repeat the gesture, until he found a way to turn the lamp off, plunging them all into darkness. Grell gave a cry, which was followed by a crash as the lamp hit the floor.

"I'll, uh, be off then?" Nesta asked the silhouette that was her boss.

"Goodbye, Miss Argall." The glint of lights from outside caught on Mr Anderson's glasses as he nodded her out the door. "And please tend to your injuries before heading back to the field."

Nesta left the quiet of the glasses department for the brighter and more active infirmary. She mentally washed her hands of the entire incident, neither suited to nor wanting to deal with whatever Grell was. Nesta immediately blurted out "raccoon" when one of the nurses came to tend to her.

The nurse, a man who looked like he hadn't slept in decades, looked her dead in the eye after she'd taken off her jacket and rolled up her sleeve. "Raccoon, you said?"

"Yes."

After a pause that said just how much he didn't believe her, he poured alcohol over the wound. As Nesta writhed in pain - reminding herself how much worse the care would have been if she had still been human - he said, "You'll need stitches."

"Okay," she muttered through gritted teeth. "Can you do it now?"

"I can. Do you want something to bite?"

"Dear lord, yes."

He gave her a piece of leather with bite marks already in it and told her to lay down. Nesta tried not to watch as the nurse fed thread through the wound, but it hurt so much worse not knowing when the next prick and slide of waxed cotton through her skin would happen.

"You're done."

She spit out the leather and sputtered at the aftertaste until the nurse offered her a glass of water before he bandaged the wound. "Your face?"

"Oh." Nesta reached a hand up to touch the tender spots she'd forgotten all about. "It's not bad, is it?"

He frowned thoughtfully. "It'll heal," he settled on.

"Can you fix that too?"

"I can patch it up."

She held perfectly still as he lathed an ointment over the injuries, followed by bandages taped into place. Nesta smacked her lips, tasting the oily balm smeared on them. Once he was satisfied with his handiwork, the nurse sent Nesta away.

Before she headed out to work, she stopped in a bathroom to check her reflection. No wonder the nurse had been careful with his words. She looked like she'd beaten her face against a tree. What had felt like a few larger injuries were actually clumps of small ones that had swollen into one mass. She pressed her fingers into the wounds and hissed. At least she wasn't given this job for her pretty face.

Nesta would have liked to have kept her pretty face, nonetheless.

* * *

Some weeks later Nesta returned to the reaper realm, mostly healed and with a much lighter case. She hadn't heard any whispers of gossip about Grell in her entire time popping back and forth between realms. That put her on edge. Surely something like that would have caused a disturbance. It - he - flew in the face of everything reapers believed to be true. Mr Anderson must have been able to keep Grell very well-hidden, then, because even the slightest oddities flared up the department's rumor mill.

A note waited on her desk when she arrived.

Miss Argall, please come by my house at your earliest convenience.

\- Lawrence Anderson

She glanced over the forms on her desk awaiting completion. Nesta tossed down her work and waved goodbye to the people she'd just said hello to. Work could wait a bit longer, as this business wasn't so washed away as she'd thought. Nesta couldn't deny she was a little curious about what had happened in the interim since leaving Grell in her boss's care, and now she had a reason to follow up. In the lobby she showed the secretary her note and asked for Mr Anderson's address, which as it turned out wasn't his office.

Soon she was standing in a quiet neighborhood on a brick stoop covered with an embarrassing amount of dead or dying flowers. Nesta knocked, and almost immediately the door was flung open. Grell stood defiantly in the hallway, hands on his hips, until Mr Anderson scooped him up and tossed him into a side room.

Mr Anderson turned to Nesta. "Oh, it's you. You can come out, Grell," he added in German.

Grell stumbled back into the hall as Nesta was motioned in and the front door closed. He had a curious assortment of clothes on, a shirt done up like a robe with a tie ribbon, and another tie around his head. Everything bunched at his feet and threw him off-balance. Mr Anderson had managed to get a comb through his hair, which now hung raggedly past his shoulders, held back by the tangle of ribbon. A pair of round glasses with a chain were balanced precariously on his nose.

"Hallo!" Grell yelled, as though Nesta was deaf and not simply half-blind.

"Hallo."

"Hallo! Wie geht es Ihnen?" he asked.

"Gut, danke." Grell grinned at her reply, and it would have been cute if not for the sharp teeth it revealed. They made him look predatory. He bounced away down the hall.

"We've been working on conversation," Mr Anderson said, leading Nesta further into the house. It looked like a small redheaded whirlwind had been through there. "He's very bright. Very energetic."

"Nobody else knows about him?"

Mr Anderson shook his head. "I'm waiting for Abby Sutcliff to get back from wherever she's disappeared to to handle it."

"You're going to hand him over to the Special Concerns Program?" It had taken her a second to place the name, but the program Sutcliff currently headed was somewhat infamous: a cadre of elite reapers picking the world apart piece by supernatural piece. It seemed a bit harsh to send Grell to them.

Mr Anderson gestured at Grell who had climbed into a chair as though awaiting food. He waved back. Mr Anderson had trained him well in the short time Grell was in his care. "He's special; he's a concern. It's a good fit, and the program could do with some more validation of its existence. But until I can contact her, Grell is under our care."

"Our, sir?"

"I have work that I've fallen behind on, and as you're the only other one who knows about his existence, you're the best candidate to care for him." Mr Anderson walked over to Grell and leaned over the table to catch his attention, thereby missing Nesta's expression which said just what she thought of that. "Do you want to go out with Miss Argall, Grell?"

"Yesss?" he asked. Accepting that as agreement enough, Mr Anderson addressed Nesta.

"Grell needs clothes. His old clothes were little more than rags, and, well, you can see how he's decided to dress himself now."

"You want me to take him shopping? Where?"

Mr Anderson shrugged. "The human realm, I imagine. We don't have any children's clothing here for obvious reasons." Nesta looked at him askance, until he added, "Please take him. Just for a day. An hour."

"Oooh." Nesta took a moment to wipe her glasses before examining Mr Anderson a little more thoroughly. While he appeared put together, his greying hair wasn't quite as coiffed as normal, and his suit sat a little uneven. Juggling a secret child and a job was more work than expected. He should have said that before, though it didn't make what she was being asked to do any more appealing.

"I had fourteen children, once," Mr Anderson offered without prompting, catching Grell's hands when he had begun to kick the table and play a staccato rhythm on its surface with his palms. "Did you ever have children, Miss Argall?"

"No, sir. I lived and died alone." She refrained from adding how that had apparently been a good call, if this is what having children consisted of. It did explain how Mr Anderson had handled Grell at all, though. Fourteen, good lord. And Mr Anderson was the sort to make sure they all made it to adulthood.

Mr Anderson released Grell, who refrained from taking up playing the tabletop again. The fact that Mr Anderson was watching him like a grey-feathered hawk probably kept him mindful of his habits. "I enjoyed my time with my children, Miss Argall, but I am not in a position to raise any more."

"I have no idea how to deal with children, sir."

"They're just little, naive adults with far too much energy. Keep him occupied, speak clearly, make sure he doesn't wander. You'll be fine." He switched to German. "Grell, you're going with Miss Argall today, okay?"

"But sir, look at how he's dressed. I can't take him -"

Grell practically materialized next to Nesta, already clutching her hand and cutting off her complaint. "Hallo!" he chirped. Mr Anderson walked past, toward the front door, but paused before he left.

"I'll reimburse you for your time and any purchases. Goodbye, Miss Argall." Then he was gone, leaving Nesta alone in his kitchen with Grell. If he wasn't her boss, she'd be tempted to make him regret that offer. Nesta could use some new accessories, but she'd have to settle on buying nice things by proxy through Grell.

"What's going on?" Grell asked. They'd slipped back into English whenever not talking to him, so of course he'd have no clue what was discussed.

"We're going to Paris."

First stop, though, was her place. They both had to get changed.


	3. Chapter 3

Very little could be done about Grell and his wardrobe, but Nesta at least managed to make him less noticable. He wouldn't let her near him with a pair of scissors, so she had to improvise. She tied his hair up into a bun and popped a hat over his head, instead, which had the added advantage of hiding his eyes from any curious reapers. He didn't seem able to make himself visible to humans, in fact seemed baffled by the very idea, so he'd simply have to tag along while she shopped in his stead.

It took Nesta much longer to get ready, but Grell waited with surprising patience.

How reapers interacted with the human realm on their own time was barely monitored past some obvious rules regarding their jobs, and most were left to make their own judgments. Nesta chose to immerse herself in the popular culture of current times, so had an embarrassing amount of books half-read, art half-appreciated, and accouterments from the most once-fashionable of places. None of it was organized, of course. She spent most of her time sending Grell on hunts for jewelry, underskirts, and anything else Nesta forgot she needed.

Eventually they were ready, and Grell had acquired some decorations of his own. Nesta tried getting the jewelry out of his hair, but gave it up for loss when he started nipping at her fingers every time she yanked some strands out.

* * *

Between Mr Anderson moving him from the department and her taking her to her own rooms, Grell had gotten much more familiar with teleporting, and only toppled into Nesta rather than passing out when they arrived in a Parisian alleyway.

Nesta pulled a thin book out of her bag while Grell untangled himself from her many skirts, which were currently in the process of eating him. He scowled at their surroundings, scenting the air like a hound.

She tried phrases she'd actually use, first. "Excuse - excusez-moi. Bonjour. Je suis désolé." She felt she'd be saying sorry a lot as she watched Grell discover a cat who very much didn't want to be discovered. The cat's tone was clear enough to guess the coarse language it was spewing, and it dug its claws into any part of Grell unfortunate enough to get in range.

When the cat ran off, Nesta called Grell to her like an animal, making kissing noises and patting her leg. Grell returned to her side, flustered but not put off by his first encounter in the city. "Stay close, Grell. We can't have any other reapers finding you."

He rubbed at the scratches already healing. "I'm a reaper."

"You are," she said, ignoring the looks passersby gave her once they exited the alley. To them she was muttering to herself in very distinct Germanic. Fortunately she didn't really care what they thought. Grell was another matter entirely. She needed him to like her if she was to watch over him today.

Biting the inside of her cheek, Nesta contemplated how to approach this. Grell was hard to gauge, feral but not stupid. She'd been told to treat him like a little adult, and adults liked being in her boss's favor, so: "Mr Anderson likes you. You like Mr Anderson, right?" Grell nodded, though his attention had been stolen by the groups of people crowding the streets. They kept a wide berth around Nesta. "It would make him very happy for you to stay secret."

Grell seemed content to accept that reason for now, beaming his razor-toothed grin at being told he was liked. She hoped that was enough to keep him contained.

* * *

"I don't think it's fair at all," Nesta told Grell as they wandered the streets, eyes on the shops. "I've only been gone five, maybe ten years - fifteen at most (possibly twenty, but no more than that I'm sure) - and all the fashions have changed. I used to be fashionable, but now look at me." Grell did as instructed without comment. If Nesta looked out of date, Grell looked like a natural disaster. "Why can't humans live longer, or at least keep the same aesthetics for more than a few years? Ah, why are we in Paris, Grell?"

"You took me here?" He asked, voice reverting to its earlier uncertainty. Nesta made a mental note to avoid rhetorical questions in the future. Despite Mr Anderson's assertions, Nesta found herself unable to just treat Grell like a little adult, because that meant letting him make his own choices, but he didn't know how to, half-feral as he was. Poor Grell hadn't had much say in anything that'd happened to him thusfar.

"I did," she agreed with a nod. "And we'll make you fashionable in my stead. Paris is, after all where fashion lives and dies. At least for now. It'll be different in a decade, and I will once again be unfashionable, as will you, and we'll get to repeat the process. Let's see, what are little boys wearing nowadays?" Nesta's green-gold eyes moved over the sea of people, trying to find some small child to base her choices off of. She saw one with decadently golden curls and stiff enough clothes to hinder all but the most refined of movements, if a child could really be refined. Nesta examined his wardrobe with an intense enough scrutiny to worry his mother or nanny, and the woman bustled him away into the crowds. It had been enough to give her an idea, at least.

"Let's go, Grell... Grell?"

While she been watching someone else's child, her own had disappeared. Her own, currently invisible to anyone else and completely new to this sort of place child.

"Dammit," she muttered, catching up her skirts and stepping off to the side. She should have put him on a leash or something. The hat Grell'd been wearing was discarded near a bush. Nesta picked it up and wrung it in her gloved hands. "Grell? Grell, where are you?" With his red hair free and his curious clothes, one would think Grell'd be easy to find, but it was the middle of the day in an ever-growing city. There were about twenty different ways he could have gone behind the whirls of skirts and legs.

With a resigned sigh, Nesta picked a direction and trod slowly, starting at the occasional flash of red, or flutter of wind. Grell had been wild, and alone, there was no telling what was running through his mind in this crammed-tight city. Or where he was running to. She'd told him to stay close, hadn't she? Did Mr Anderson mean so little to Grell that she couldn't use him as leverage?

As her search continued to produce no results, Nesta slipped out of visibility. She hopped up window sills and low eaves until she had a better vantage point across the rooftops. With a bird's view, the streets could be searched with a glance. Let him try hiding now.

Nesta leapt from roof to roof and tried not to break her ankle on her stupid, stupid shoes. The occasional reaper passed her by, and she gave a nod, barely made eye contact, and continued in the direction opposite. She wasn't an actor, felt in fact that at the first question of "how do you do" she'd just spill everything about Grell, so the best option was to keep to herself.

Nesta rubbed her face, trying to keep the panic from welling up as she found herself on a relatively deserted street. As it turned out, even with her on the rooftops, Grell still managed to evade her. She lost Grell.

She _lost_ Grell.

She had one job. What would Mr Anderson say? What would he do? Nesta liked working in the glasses department, she couldn't get transferred again. Back to dispatch, back to the grind of soul after soul worn threadbare by life, a black mark on her record forever. Nobody ever got transferred within decades of the last one, and she was about to set a terrible precedent for what it would mean. Wanting some of that dispatch excitement back had gotten her in this predicament in the first place. Nesta would never want anything again, she swore to her cruel, vindictive God, so long as she got Grell back.

Hiking her skirts, she breathed in deep and steadied herself for more searching - hours of it, if need be. God wasn't any help when she had been alive, and God sure as hell wasn't going to help her now. She just had to be calm. She'd figure this out.

What did she know about Grell? He was a fighter, so if Nesta ever heard screaming, she'd be able to find him. He had far too much energy, but that was likely just him being a child. Independent, had to be, what with how he was raised. A thief with no concept of property. She hadn't gotten to know Grell well beyond that, before Mr Anderson had saved her from him.

Nesta kept to the ground and the alleys this time, where only the destitute and detritus lay. She couldn't search in the throngs of the main thoroughfares, and doubted Grell would stay around so many people. Even if they just passed through him with nary a problem, no reaper liked that brush with life that left a curious tickle in its wake, an ache and reminder all rolled into one. She shuddered just to think on it, and skirted a man bleeding out after what looked like a botched robbery. He was close enough to the brink to see her, and reached out with a gurgling cry. Nesta sprinted around the corner with a muttered "Je suis désolé" to the reaper waiting in the wings for him to die.

Her hem was ruined by the time the sun swung past its zenith, and all her work on clothes, hair, and make-up had slowly come undone. She ducked into an alcove to loosen the ties at her waist. One must always suffer for beauty, but that meant once her beauty was tarnished by a Parisian sun and hours of walking, she was free to look out of sorts.

Shoes off, corset unlaced (now that took some fancy finger work, given it lay under several other layers), hair down into a rats nest tangle with accents still trapped within. Nesta shrugged off as much as she could and shoved it into a crevice, then rolled up her sleeves. Slapping her cheeks, she struggled to find a second wind. It would be much easier to move, now.

If Grell wasn't going to reveal himself, she would tear this city apart to find him. And when she did, she would kill him.

* * *

A flash of red. Nesta started, hit a lamp post.

She clutched her nose, tried to stem the flow of blood while simultaneously fixing her glasses. That hurt so much. But no time for pain. She'd seen something! Nesta spun around.

There! She kept one hand pressed to her face while her other pulled up her skirts so she could chase down Grell. He disappeared around a corner and Nesta followed, stumbling through a couple who paused, looked confused, then shrugged it off and moved on. She shivered like she'd touched a ghost.

It was definitely Grell, and he was on the move to God knew where. Nesta wanted to yell, but couldn't draw attention to herself.

She took to the rooftops again, ignoring the other reapers she could see on other roofs. She had him now, and come hell or high water, she wasn't going to lose him now.

Grell seemed unharmed and navigated the labyrinthine city with feline deftness. That was some small weight off her shoulders. He had something bright yellow with him, and clutched it close as he picked directions seemingly at random.

When he hit a main road, he immediately backed away. Nesta used that hesitation to dive on Grell like a hawk, swooping him up into a hug. He yelped and writhed. _Now_ she was yelling. "You little rat bastard! I thought something had happened to you - something could have happened to you. If I were't already dead, I swear to God - " Nesta had in fact sworn to God, but this was her own damn work, not divine intervention. She felt any promises she'd made didn't matter now.

Teeth sank into her shoulder, and Nesta dropped him. Grell glared up at her, glasses loose around his neck. He fixed his hold on the bundle to put them back on his face. Nesta rubbed her shoulder and checked her glove for fresh blood. She probably deserved that, now that she was a bit calmer, the curious oil-water mixture of anger and relief dissipating like rain under the glare of sunlight. "Sorry," Nesta mumbled like a scolded child as she sank down in a marshmallow poof of skirts. Grell stood in front of her, switching his weight from foot to foot. At least he wasn't running, anymore.

"I got them!" Grell announced when it was obvious she wasn't going to do anything but try and catch her breath. She didn't even need to breath, but old habits were hard to break.

"Got what?"

Nesta readjusted her glasses, bringing Grell into focus. The yellow thing.

"I got my clothes. Can we go now? I don't like it here."

He couldn't have paid for that, so she'd have to do it for him. But later. Grell couldn't be trusted to not wander off again. Nesta struggled to her feet and nodded, holding out her hand for him to take. One outfit, whatever ugly thing it likely was, was fine for now. "Sure. Let's go."

Nesta kept a tight hold on Grell as she walked back to her clothes. They'd already been stolen, turned visible as soon as she was far enough away. She sighed, and teleported him back to her flat.

As Nesta struggled out of what she had left to get out of, Grell stood quietly in the corner, clutching his ill-gotten goods. It was eerie, knowing he was there but not causing trouble. Finally, Nesta couldn't stand the good behaviour and sat, waving him over to her.

"What's wrong, Grell?"

"Are you angry?"

"No?" Nesta asked.

"Then why did you yell at me? I seen people do that before, when they're angry."

Nesta had to wonder what his worldview was with that sort of background, with no one to explain or comfort him when horrible things happened. Especially in the tiny villages and hamlets where she found him. She had lived in those sorts of places when she was alive, left it all behind for just that reason. As a general rule, they were insular and awful. Nesta looked Grell over - going from being ignored to being yelled at. She was so bad with children. If she wasn't more careful, she was going to break this weird little reaper before he'd quite figured out what normal was, and do it completely by her own incompetence.

She rubbed her aching face a moment, then said, "I'm not angry now." Nesta patted the seat next to her for Grell to sit down. "I was, but it was because I was worried. If I lose you, I lose my job. All I have is my job."

The silence this time was awkward and stretched out far too long. He definitely wasn't a little adult, if he couldn't understand that her work was her everything. She'd rather not have that hanging in the air, so Nesta straightened and clapped her hands. Grell froze like a deer. She really had to be more careful. "What did you say you got, Grell?"

Grell hopped up, all his earlier worry gone. He shook out the clothes, revealing a distinctive bell-shaped silhouette. Bright yellow, velvet-soft, several pieces that almost matched. "I got this!"

"It's... a dress, Grell. You can't wear that."

"Why not? I liked it best!"

"Because... Girls wear dresses. Boys wear suits."

Grell looked confused by this statement, and began to scrutinize Nesta.

"What?" she asked after a long stretch of silent studying.

"Are you a boy or a girl?"

"I'm a girl. Why - oh. You have a point." It was only in the human realm that the distinctions really mattered. Reaper uniforms had very little variation between male and female, and nothing said boys couldn't wear the skirted uniform. Most everyone chose trousers for practicality, though, including Nesta. She pressed her fingers thoughtfully to her lips. If he wanted to wear dresses and jewelry, who was she to deny him that? "Okay, you've already go the dress, so you can wear it."

Grell gave her a look that suggested he'd been planning to regardless of what Nesta said. She was too focused on her imagining what she could do with him now that he'd unwittingly submitted himself to being her model to notice. Grell was already pretty cute, but he'd need help getting as pretty as such a dress deserved, and Nesta had a plethora of ideas and no limit on budget. This required some paper and a measuring tape, if she was to return to the human realm. She'd just lock him in with her jewelry and cosmetics to keep him entertained while she went shopping this time around. Even if her flat got destroyed, at least he'd be somewhere safe.

Yes. She could make this work.


End file.
